


That's How the Light Gets In

by sylviarachel



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Asexual Sherlock, Bisexual John, Case Fic, Cuddling, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Greg is cleverer than Sherlock thinks, M/M, POV John Watson, POV Lestrade, POV Sherlock Holmes, Post-Reichenbach, Pretty much guaranteed not series 3 compliant, Really a lot of talking, Sherlock has feelings, Sherlock has got some hangups, Talking, everyone has trust issues, making lists, okay actually John has got some hangups too, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2014-01-04
Packaged: 2018-01-06 21:58:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1111980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylviarachel/pseuds/sylviarachel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Falling in love is not the tricky bit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ring the Bells That Still Can Ring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If it were up to Sherlock, they just wouldn’t talk about it: sooner or later, in his experience, trying to put these things into words takes them places he doesn’t want to go. But, naturally, John thinks talking about it is important and useful, and just at the moment Sherlock would be willing to do nearly anything if it led to John’s forgiving him.

It starts more or less straight away, before Sherlock has even properly got his bearings.

It’s partly the shock, of course; both of them, as has been established by repeated trials, are much more likely to engage in uncharacteristically uninhibited behaviour in the aftermath of an emotionally fraught event. Being kidnapped and nearly killed, for example, or subjected to novel hallucinogenic compounds. With almost no effort Sherlock can come up with a dozen examples of near-death experiences he’s shared with John. (He’s vaguely aware that by the standards of John’s notional Normal People, this is probably Not Good. But it’s always seemed to work for him and John.) He can also count the number of times he nearly confessed something after such an experience, and the ratio of near-confessions to near-deaths is worryingly high.

So perhaps it’s not altogether surprising that after going as pale as the stupid beige walls of his stupid tiny non–Baker Street flat, and shouting raw-voiced invective at Sherlock for more than fifteen minutes (some of it quite creative: clearly, John was concealing a talent for imaginative verbal abuse during their former life together), and throwing an emphatic left cross which Sherlock could easily have dodged, but didn’t, and which therefore knocked him back on his arse on John’s stupid beige sofa, John stalks over and takes hold of Sherlock’s lapel with his right fist and raises his left for another go but then abruptly brings it down again to grab the other side of Sherlock’s coat and tugs Sherlock up (or himself down; it’s hard to tell) to smash their lips together.

It’s less a kiss than a blow, a bite, a bruising – the continuation of fisticuffs by other means. Sherlock isn’t even sure John knows what he’s doing. Still, it’s so unexpected that for a few seconds he hangs in John’s grip, frantically calculating – only a few seconds, but long enough for John to come to his senses and pull away, looking horrified. Now it’s Sherlock’s turn to act on desperate instinct, pulling John into his arms so he can’t get away.

It takes only a moment for John to relax into Sherlock’s embrace, and a moment more for John’s arms to close around his back, holding tight. Sherlock inhales the warm home-smell where John’s neck meets his shoulder: wool and laundry soap and English Breakfast and antiseptic and _John, John, John_. He’s murmuring words, but he isn’t sure what they are.

* * *

Talking about it is more difficult, of course.

If it were up to Sherlock, they just wouldn’t: sooner or later, in his experience, trying to put these things into words takes them places he doesn’t want to go. Isn’t, he’s fairly certain, actually capable of going. But there are some things he does need to get clear; and, naturally, John thinks Talking It Out is important and useful, and just at the moment Sherlock would be willing to do nearly anything if it led to John’s forgiving him.

And so, inevitably, they soon end up having That Conversation. Although – like many situations involving John – it doesn’t go at all the way Sherlock has been expecting.

John begins it, probably inadvertently, by saying, “You know, I never thought you were interested in this sort of thing.”

“I’m really not,” says Sherlock. He realizes this wasn’t quite the right way to put it when John’s face folds up in the way that means he’s hurt, but trying not to show it. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he amends hastily. “I meant … Look, about the sex: You should know that I don’t enjoy it myself, but I’m perfectly willing to participate if—”

John looks revolted, and Sherlock re-experiences that familiar blow-to-the-abdomen effect. He’d so hoped it would be different with John, but—

Then John says, “You honestly think I would want you to … to _participate_ in something you didn’t enjoy?”

“You’re always on at me to eat when I’m not hungry, and do the washing-up, and be polite to horribly tedious people,” Sherlock says, around the swell of relief in his chest: whatever John is revolted by, it isn’t Sherlock. (At least, not yet.) “I don’t enjoy any of those things. Why is this one different?”

John blinks at him as if this (perfectly logical) question makes no sense. “Why is this … ? Sherlock, seriously? Look, it just … _is_ , all right?”

“I’m not talking about _coercion_ ,” Sherlock says, a bit impatient. “You wouldn’t be forcing me; I’m a consenting adult. I don’t have to be enjoying myself in order for you to—”

“ _No_ , Sherlock.” The look of revulsion is back, and John’s tone leaves no doubt that as far as he’s concerned, this line of argument is over; Sherlock will have to make another attempt, later, to explain that while he doesn’t enjoy being touched in those ways, he thinks he might quite enjoy touching John. “There is no possible way that I’m going to enjoy … _anything_ … if I know you’re gritting your teeth and thinking of England, and quite frankly it disturbs me that you think I could. So, no, we are not going to do anything that you’re not comfortable with, and don’t try to lie to me about it, because _I will know_.”

John nods once, sharply: a sign he’s arrived at some sort of decision. “So. Here’s what we _are_ going to do,” he says. “You’re going to tell me some things you do like, and then we’ll start with those.”

This is new: at this stage, in Sherlock’s experience, people have one of two reactions, which he has mentally labelled _Fear not! My magical willy will solve your frigidity problem_ and _Dear God, you really are a freak_. For John he’s going to need to create a new category.

If only the John Watson category could be the only one he ever needs from now on. But that’s almost certainly too much to hope for.

“You want to know what I like,” he says, just in case he’s heard wrong.

“Yes,” says John. He sits back, patiently expectant, and waits for Sherlock to say something.

This shouldn’t be so difficult, Sherlock tells himself. John already knows – or should know – all sorts of things Sherlock likes: being allowed to sprawl over the sofa with his legs across John’s or his head in John’s lap; sitting shoulder to shoulder in the backs of cabs; good-morning hugs when John is still warm and slow and sleepy; kisses with no particular destination.

“I like … touching,” he says, finally.

John tilts his head: asking for more information, Sherlock knows, and knowing this without even having to think about it makes him feel warm and happy (and possibly a little bit smug).

He searches for a name to assign to the category of touching he means – one more descriptive than the ones he uses in his own mind, which are merely antonyms of _horrid_ and _nauseating_ and _unpleasant_ and _too much_ , one that John will understand, because John so much wants to understand him and he so much likes it when John does – and finally comes up with, “The kinds of touching that people don’t bother with much if they’re not going to lead to penetrative sex.”

Then he spends a few seconds puzzling over John’s new facial expression – because why should what Sherlock just said have made John _angry_? – until John says, in the extremely calm and even tone that means he really is very angry indeed, “Such as?”

“Well—” Sherlock flounders a bit. “Hugging. Hair. Shoulders? I …”

John’s face softens, gentles. “Show me?” he suggests.

Oh. _Oh_. Sometimes John is _brilliant._

“Yes,” Sherlock says.

He takes a moment to study John: his lined, tired face, which Sherlock knows in a hundred moods from affection to implacable fury; his compact body, small but strong; his eyes, blue like the sky at twilight. All of which are wonderful things about John, but all on the surface, none of them getting at his essential John-ness, the huge indefinable thing without which Sherlock is so noticeably diminished, the thing that makes John ask questions nobody else has ever asked Sherlock, such as _So, then, how_ do _you like to be touched?_

Then he threads the fingers of his right hand into John’s short grey-blond hair, _so many colours mingled, beautiful_ ,and smoothes his left hand up over John’s forehead, across the top of his head, down the back of his skull to the nape of his neck. He flattens both hands around John’s skull and gently massages his scalp.

John’s eyes fall closed and he leans into Sherlock’s touch, exactly as Sherlock would if their positions were reversed, and once again Sherlock thinks, _Oh._

He smiles.

His hands skim down John’s arms, just firmly enough, and back up to his shoulders. He stands up and clambers carefully around to sit down again behind John, where he can achieve the right angle for gentle kneading of shoulders and trapezius muscles. John relaxes under Sherlock’s hands and makes a happy sort of humming noise that warms Sherlock down to his toes.

He moves his kneading fingers up John’s neck to his hairline – John bends his head forward and nuzzles Sherlock’s index finger with his jaw – and then back down over his shoulders, lower, lower, to the knotted muscles either side of his lumbar spine. He huffs in surprise when John flops forward, folding his arms on the arm of the sofa, and heaves a great contented sigh.

Then John says, his voice muffled in the sleeve of his striped jumper, “You do realize I’m going to make you do this all the time, now that I know you’re so brilliant at it.”

Sherlock’s hands still in pleased astonishment; John’s nearest eye cracks open, and he quirks an eyebrow and says, “What? This is news to you?”

“Um.” Sherlock resumes his progress down John’s spine, thoughtful now. “Well. I did have a job as a masseur, once, for a couple of weeks. For a case. It was … less unpleasant than I’d initially expected.”

“Mmm.” John’s eye has fallen closed again, and the visible corner of his mouth has begun to curl upward.

And Sherlock thinks, helplessly, _I love this man. God help me, how I love this man._

He can’t say this out loud, of course; he knows where that sort of declaration leads. It might be different with John, John is unusual in a gratifying number of ways, but there are other ways in which he’s depressingly normal, and what if this is one of them? Sherlock has spent too long fighting his way back home – back to Baker Street, back to _John_ – to bodge it all up now.

So instead he says, “My hands are getting tired,” even though they aren’t, he could do this all day, it’s _good_. “Care to reciprocate?”

And John stretches and clambers upright, grinning so hard his face is almost incandescent, and says, “Down you go, gorgeous,” which seems like a bad sign, but then John’s small, competent hands are _perfect_ and the whole experience is utterly baffling, because even though John _knows_ there’s not going to be any sex at the end of this, he genuinely seems to be enjoying himself.

Sherlock doesn’t say anything else for a long time, because affection and devotion and _need_ are swelling his ribcage to an alarming degree, and he’s afraid of what might come out of his mouth if he does.


	2. Forget Your Perfect Offering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John is hugely relieved and, at the same time, remarkably annoyed; he can’t decide whether he most wants to give Sherlock a reassuring hug, a smack in the head, or a cushion to the forehead. Any of these approaches, he suspects, would go down equally badly just at the moment.

“Sherlock.” John’s been trying for an hour to finish writing up the case they concluded last week (he’s quite pleased with the title he’s come up with: “The Problem of Tower Bridge”) and not succeeding because Sherlock is leaning heavily against John’s arm, or flopping his curly head onto John’s shoulder, or leaning over to peer intently at his laptop screen – just generally being an impediment to blogging, in other words – and John has finally had enough. “Sherlock, if you want me to stop typing so we can have a cuddle, you can just say so. You know I love you, but—”

He’s not sure what effect he was expecting this statement to produce, but what actually happens is that Sherlock abruptly unpeels himself from John and leaps to his feet, apparently in order to loom more effectively, and demands, “What did you just say?”

John, pressed back against the back of the sofa by the force of Sherlock’s stare, repeats, “Um. I said, ‘if you want a cuddle, you can just say so’.”

“ _No_ ,” Sherlock says, impatient. He’s got his hands behind his back in classic pacing-around-a-crime-scene mode, but he’s standing tensely, almost aggressively, still. “Not that bit. The other thing.”

Puzzled, John thinks back. _Oh._

_That._

“If it’s news to you that I love you, Sherlock,” he says, more gently, “then you can’t have been paying much attention.”

This stops Sherlock cold.

Which is odd, John thinks. Because it’s been some time now since they gave up pretending to be _just friends_ or _just flatmates_ , it’s been months since the day Sherlock came back from the fucking dead and John shouted reams of creative military-issue abuse at him and punched him in the jaw and drew back to do it again, but then suddenly realized what this meant – that Sherlock had fucking well lied to him and let him grieve for two bloody fucking years, yes, but also that, Jesus fucking Christ on a cracker, _Sherlock wasn’t dead_ – and somehow, instead, without consciously intending it, kissed him, clumsy and furious, and Sherlock froze and drew back in what looked like horror but then, just as John was inwardly turning all that military-issue invective on himself, wrapped long cuttlefish-like arms around John and hugged him so tightly that he half thought his ribs would crack, chanting, “John, my John, mine, _mine_ ,” into John’s ear in a low fierce mutter.

So, no, not exactly news to either of them.

Is this really the first time John has said “I love you” out loud? Is it even _possible_ that something so important, so fundamental to who he is, has never before made it out of his head? Well, and that’s the most likely explanation, really: it’s never occurred to him to make a song and dance out of saying the words because by now, quite frankly, _in love with Sherlock Holmes_ is as much a part of John Watson as _very good_ _doctor_ or _used to be a soldier_ or _doesn’t take sugar in his coffee._

John has never needed to say it. But maybe Sherlock has been needing to hear it?

Or maybe – because Sherlock doesn’t look pleased or touched or happy or relieved or even (and this is very worrying, come to think) smug, he looks _dismayed_ – maybe this is a different problem entirely.

“That’s what I was afraid you’d said,” Sherlock mutters.

_Well, fuck._ This is genuinely baffling – that is, baffling on an entirely new and surprising level from the constant low-grade bafflement produced by life with Sherlock.

It’s been months, yes, and up to a few moments ago John’s been under the impression that things were going really very well. Sherlock has thus far seemed unbothered by a certain amount of possessive, protective and even (John is really not proud of this) frankly jealous behaviour on John’s part – the sort of thing that’s been known to put off previous significant others – and is not above engaging in the same sort of thing himself from time to time (for instance, there’s a big ginger detective constable on DI Toby Gregson’s murder team who will probably never again refer to John as “the short-arse that runs around with Holmes”). Even their sex life has been a lot less of a problem than John expected: a series of startlingly frank conversations and experimental trials has established that although firmly and actively uninterested in getting off himself, Sherlock actually quite enjoys assisting (or at least observing) John in a certain limited range of getting-off-related activities – in fact, he seems to find it fascinating, in a scientific-data-collecting manner that John tries, unsuccessfully, to pretend isn’t a turn-on. Outside the bedroom – and everyone’s sleeping better now they’ve just got the one – massages and slow, aimless snogging and cooperative showering have likewise proved mutually enjoyable, and Sherlock (as he’s been demonstrating this morning) is the most determined cuddler John has ever met – he could cuddle for England, he could teach an advanced cuddling seminar at Cambridge, he cuddles as though he’s trying to make up for a lifetime of touch-deprivation … which John wishes were just a metaphor but fears might be literally true.

In most other respects things have gone on in approximately the same way as before: John makes the tea and Sherlock pays for the takeaway; Sherlock periodically eats something, and John does the washing-up; Sherlock summons the cabs and John gets the shopping; Sherlock pisses people off, and John calms them down again. And if John occasionally wishes they could be a little more public with their … whatever this is – he doesn’t mean handjobs in alleyways or sloppy kisses at crime scenes, but the occasional non-accidental touch outside the flat would be, well, nice – well, what does that matter, really?

All of which is to say that if John had had to predict what would be the deal-breaker in this relationship, the words _I love you_ , uttered in a casual manner in the privacy of their own lounge, would not have been his first guess.

He sets his laptop on the floor at his feet and pats the sofa seat beside him invitingly. “Come and sit,” he suggests.

Sherlock silently folds himself into the corner of the sofa. In other circumstances John might have derived some satisfaction from this instant cooperation, but Sherlock’s facing-down-a-firing-squad expression and the way he’s combined _sitting on the sofa with John_ and _staying as far away from John as humanly possible_ leave John no room to feel anything but extremely worried.

“Talk to me,” he says. “Please, Sherlock.”

Sherlock is silent for what seems like a very long time. Finally he says, in a very small voice and carefully not meeting John’s gaze, “It’s not news. That you, um. That you … have some sort of … feelings. For me. I’ve just been hoping that we could … could just keep on the way we have been, and not have to start _saying_ … _that_.”

John bites back the several exasperated retorts that immediately occur to him and instead says, very carefully, “Okay. And … um … why, exactly?”

“Because,” Sherlock says, “people only say ‘I love you’” – he puts the words in positively corrosive inverted commas – “when they want … things.”

“Things,” John repeats. “What things?”

Sherlock raises his head and doesn’t have to say _Isn’t it obvious, you idiot?_ because his expression does a fine job of conveying that concept, ta very much.

“Bearing in mind that only one of us is a deductive genius,” John says evenly, “it’d be really helpful if you could unpack that statement a little bit, yeah?”

“You’re going to make me _spell it out_?” Sherlock glares at him, all folded in on himself like a bespoke-suited praying mantis and equal parts miserable, bitter, defensive and furious, and John has a sudden, very belated, epiphany.

“You’re talking about _sex_ ,” he says. “You’re panicking because you think I’m going to start demanding blowjobs and, and anal sex all of a sudden. You berk.”

Sherlock winces, but doesn’t tell him he’s wrong, which, really, is all the confirmation he needs.

John is hugely relieved and, at the same time, remarkably annoyed; he can’t decide whether he most wants to give Sherlock a reassuring hug, a smack in the head, or a cushion to the forehead. Any of these approaches, he suspects, would go down equally badly just at the moment.

“Look,” he says. “Look, Sherlock. I don’t know what data set you’re drawing that conclusion from,” _because you never bloody well_ tell _me anything, you enormous berk_ , he manages not to add, “but whatever it is, the findings are not generalizable to John Watson. Okay?”

Sherlock looks at him, briefly. It’s a deeply sceptical look, and actually more of a glance than a look, but still: eye contact.

“Sherlock. Would you say I’m a devious sort of bloke? Skilled actor, accomplished liar?”

This elicits an incredulous sort of snort.

“Right,” John agrees. “Exactly. So, deploying Occam’s Razor, which do you think is more likely: that I’m lying to you when I look you in the eyes and say, ‘Sherlock, we’re not going to do anything you’re not comfortable with,’ or that I _actually don’t want to do anything you’re not comfortable with_?”

At the other end of the sofa, Sherlock shifts uncomfortably, stares down at his drawn-up knees. John is filled with love and exasperation.

“And which d’you think is more likely,” he continues, “that I told you I love you in order to guilt you into sex, or that the words just slipped out because they’re true and real and I just didn’t bother to censor them?”

“John—”

“No, listen,” John says, reckless. “I’m not clever, Sherlock. I’m not devious. I may be rubbish at relationships, but I’m not _dishonest_.” _Well, except with myself, for far too long._ “I’m trusting you to let me know what you need, what you’re okay with and what you’re not. I just—” he stops himself, just in time, from saying _I just need you to trust me, too, is that really too much to ask?_ , which he knows would be Not Helpful _._ “I wish you could trust me, trust that I’ve got no ulterior motive here. I just—”

Again, he closes his mouth just in time. Should it be this hard to not say _I love you_ to someone, after not noticing for months that you haven’t said it?

Sherlock stirs. “I do trust you,” he says, a sort of petulant baritone growl. “I’ve always trusted you. This is … different.”

_Aha, now we’re getting somewhere._ “No,” John says. “The thing is, Sherlock, this _isn’t_ different.”

“Is,” Sherlock tells his knees.

“No,” John insists, gently; “it isn’t. You think it is,” he realizes, “because you think you’ve just recently given me the power to hurt you. You think that’s new, and in one way it is, but we’ve always had the power to hurt each other, Sherlock.” He keeps his voice even, resolutely does not give examples, and in particular does not mention the most painful example of all. Does not let his mind’s eye stray to flailing limbs and a billowing coat, to blood pooling on pavement and pale, glassy eyes. _I will not bring guilt into this conversation. Will. Not._ “Look. If hearing those words makes you uncomfortable—”

“I can’t,” Sherlock insists, impatient. His head comes up and he looks John in the eyes. “I know how this works, John; I’m not as inexperienced as you think. If _you_ say it, then _I_ have to say it, and that means I have to—”

“ _Je-_ sus.” Sudden, overwhelming fury propels John to his feet, muscles uselessly tensed to face a nonexistent danger. He paces back and forth in front of the coffee table – is this how Sherlock feels at his most manic, as if attempting to be still will literally cause him to explode? “Did you not hear what I said? About how your previous findings don’t generalize? Listen to me, Sherlock. Whoever these people were who … who fucked you around, before—”

“What makes you think—”

“I may not be as clever as you, but I’m _not an idiot_.” John’s fists lack an appropriate target, and he is not, _is not_ , going to let fly at any of the inappropriate targets currently available, but oh, how he wants to punch someone. Every single one of Sherlock’s previous significant others in sequence, for preference, whoever the fuck they are. “You didn’t come up with that gob-shite line of reasoning on your own, you had … _help_. Let me guess: ‘If you really loved me, you’d give me what I need.’ ‘If I don’t turn you on, you obviously don’t really love me.’ ‘You must be gay really’, or ‘You must like women really.’ ‘You might not have liked it with so-and-so, but it’ll be different with me, because _you love me_.’ Have I missed any?”

He reaches the end of his pacing space and turns round; Sherlock is studying him intently. “You see,” he says quietly; “you do know how it works.”

John clenches his fists so tightly that his close-trimmed fingernails cut into his palms.

“I just hope you’ll cover for me if I ever happen to meet any of those arseholes,” he says, attempting levity and failing, “because I really don’t fancy a murder conviction.”

Sherlock’s eyebrows fly up toward his hairline. “You have met one of them,” he says. “Didn’t you realize?”

“What?” John stares at him. And then it hits him, queasy-cold: “Sebastian Wilkes? You … dated … _Sebastian_ _Wilkes_?”

“Of course,” Sherlock says. “To be fair, he was less unpleasant to me when we first met than … afterwards. He also introduced me to the joys of cocaine -- I thought you’d worked that bit out, at least, since you seemed to dislike him so much.”

“Nnnope, you’ve just given me another reason,” John says grimly. “Ta for that. No, actually, I disliked him because he’s an arrogant twat. Because he’s a gormless arsemonger. Because he thinks he’s better than you even though he’s clearly not fit to fetch your coffee. Because he insulted you to your face, and right in front of me, and you—” The penny drops, finally, and John’s stomach along with it. “Oh, Jesus. Oh, Christ, Sherlock, I’m sorry.”

“What? You’re— What?”

“You said ‘friend,’” John says. He falls to his knees beside the sofa and – forgetting that he’s keeping his hands to himself until they’ve sorted this out – folds his arms across Sherlock’s thighs and rests his chin on them. “You said ‘friend,’ and he made that stupid smarmy face, and I said ‘colleague,’ and that was cruel of me, I didn’t mean it to be but it was. I’m so sorry.”

“But that’s— John, that’s _brilliant_ ,” Sherlock breathes.

John straightens his spine, looks up at Sherlock as Sherlock looks down at him. “Say again?”

“No, it is,” says Sherlock, with the beginnings of a delighted grin. “There’s always something! I thought you didn’t like him because he’d made assumptions about our relationship that you resented, and then I thought it was because you’d worked out about the coke, but no, you didn’t like him because _you thought he was horrible_! Oh, it’s _Christmas_!”

John blinks, trying not to look completely flummoxed. “I think if you asked any random sample of people on the street,” he says, “you’d find a large majority would consider Sebastian Wilkes pretty horrible, objectively speaking, so. Not sure what’s so brilliant about me thinking it.”

“Because you looked at the two of us,” Sherlock says, clearly caught between _how can you be such an idiot_ and _you are absolutely brilliant_ (a look John recognizes easily because he wears it so often himself), “together, side by side, him all good-looking and successful in his new Breitling, sitting behind his flash VIP desk in his enormous VIP office, and me taking cases for cash whilst pretending we didn’t need the money and being … well, the way I am, and instead of seeing something wrong with me, _you saw something wrong with Sebastian_. Which puts you, John, in a very, _very_ small minority among human beings who have met both of us. Possibly, in fact, a minority of one.”

He pauses whilst John goggles at him, then adds, as if he can’t resist, “Of course, you’re right, he is horrible. But most people think I’m significantly more horrible than he is.”

“You’re not horrible,” John protests. “You’re brilliant and extraordinary and amazing and gorgeous.” He stops himself just before adding _and sexy_ , which would probably be very unhelpful at this point.

“I’m an ex-cokehead who keeps body parts in the fridge and a skull on the mantelpiece.”

“I didn’t say you’re not also a pain in my arse from time to time.”

Which is not, John is fairly certain, the sort of remark that normally prompts one’s boyfriend to do his best impression of an impassioned cuttlefish. But then, if he’d wanted normal, would he have fallen in love with Sherlock Holmes?


	3. There Is a Crack in Everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having spent most of his adult life investigating serious crimes in one of the world’s largest cities, Greg Lestrade sometimes make the mistake of assuming he’s seen it all. Given how much time he spends with Sherlock Holmes, he really should know better.

Greg Lestrade has spent most of his adult life investigating serious crimes of one sort or another in one of the world’s largest cities, as a result of which he sometimes make the mistake of assuming he’s seen it all.

Given his long and close association with Sherlock Holmes, he really should know better.

* * *

 

Sherlock is striding around the floodlit platform of an abandoned Tube station, peering at things and muttering to himself. John is standing beside Greg, ever patient, watching Sherlock work. There’s absolutely nothing unusual about their behaviour -- except that ever since they came down here, Sherlock swooping dramatically down the ladder in his posh coat, John climbing sensibly along after him (again absolutely as usual, barring the actual ladder), there’s been some kind of tension shimmering in the air. Greg frowns at himself – what is he, an emo teenager? _Tension shimmering in the air_ , what bollocks. Except …

DS Lanner comes up on Greg’s other side and mutters, “What’s up with him, sir?”

“What?” Greg asks, startled. “Who?”

She jerks her chin at Sherlock. John shifts just a little; Greg, glancing at him, sees that his expression has gone from _Why can’t cases happen_ after _breakfast?_ to _Seriously, do_ not _fuck with me_.

So something is definitely up with Sherlock, then.

Greg shrugs at Lanner. “Gathering evidence,” he says. “Examining the scene. Getting ready to tell us what we missed with our tiny little brains.” He knows this isn’t what she’s asking: she’s worked with Sherlock often enough to know what he does, what he looks like when he’s doing it and why, despite being an obnoxious git so much of the time, he keeps on being invited to do it.

“Yeah, but,” Lanner says, even more quietly, “the swooping around like a great overgrown bat is normal, right, but the muttering’s all wrong.”

Greg blinks, not sure which of these startling statements to be startled by first. “Sergeant Lanner,” he says, turning to her, “A word?”

He steers them over to the right, a few feet away from John, before he says, “Did you just compare Sherlock to _Professor Snape_?”

“Well.” Lanner shrugs one shoulder, and the side of her mouth quirks up. “It fits, doesn’t it? Tall, dark and … well, swoopy. Clever and misunderstood. Prickly on the outside, loyal on the inside.”

“That’s very perceptive, Sergeant,” Greg says, impressed. He’s even more impressed when Lanner doesn’t blush or duck her head, just gives him a pleased nod. “Now, what do you mean, the muttering’s all wrong?”

“Well,” she says again. “It’s … well, what I overheard when I was checking in with the SOCOs, only about half of it was anything to do with the crime scene. The other half was him calling himself names, and about …” Lanner hesitates, then darts her eyes over at John. “About him.”

Greg half-turns to look at John. He’s still standing where they left him, still watching Sherlock, and he looks …

Before Greg can work out what that face means or why it looks so familiar, Sherlock’s stopped swooping about and is calling, “Lestrade! Come and look at this!”

Greg goes; Lanner follows him. John stays where he is.

But when Sherlock swoops away up the ladder again, John is right behind him.

* * *

“Look, it was obviously not the daughter-in-law,” Sherlock says. It’s just after three in the afternoon of the day after the one that began with an anonymous tip-off about a body in the long-abandoned British Museum Tube station, although it might as well be the same too bloody long day because no one’s had any sleep since then. “She had the best opportunity, yes, but you can’t possibly have thought that a _professional archivist_ would risk damaging first editions of _Ulysses_ and _Tristram Shandy_ by using them as projectiles? Even you lot can’t—”

John clears his throat very quietly; Sherlock glances at him and visibly swallows the impending insult.

When he speaks again, his voice is subdued. “Wallace’s younger son, Jeremy, was in love with his sister-in-law. She felt sorry for him, let him down gently – it’s all in the text and email history on her phone.”

“No, it isn’t,” says DS Lanner. “There was nothing at all in her text or email history, even though she’d had the phone for a year.”

“Yes,” Sherlock says, “and it was all deleted _after_ she was taken in for questioning, leaving her phone at her father-in-law’s house. As you would know if you had bo— if you had spoken to her mobile provider. She had made no effort to hide it herself; probably discussed it with her husband and all her friends, in fact, she’s that sort.”

He gives John a look Greg can’t interpret. Greg decides to save his _you can’t steal my warrant card and use it to bluff telecommunications services into giving you people’s private data_ lecture for later.

“So … Jeremy Wallace framed her? ‘If I can’t have you, no one can’, sort of thing?” DS Lanner suggests.

Sherlock visibly swallows a scathing retort. “That would have been exceptionally stupid of him,” he says instead. “Though it’s not a bad theory of the crime. Love does make people stupid.”

There’s a little snort of mirthless laughter from John; Greg looks at him sharply.

“She thought that was the kindest way to proceed,” Sherlock continues, “that she’d talked him out of trying to get what he wanted, but Jeremy wasn’t able to let it go; when pleading and frankly execrable poetry didn’t work, he gradually escalated to stalking. Wallace, who seems to have been fond of his daughter-in-law – the three of them, he and his older son and Gemma Camberley, had common interests that Jeremy didn’t share – became aware that this behaviour was causing her distress, and confronted his son. The stalking stopped; Wallace no doubt believed he had made Jeremy see reason. But Jeremy was _in love_ ,” and now the tone really is scathing, and Sherlock is quite obviously looking anywhere but at John.

 _Jesus_ , thinks Greg. _What the bloody hell?_ But he can’t let himself be distracted by … whatever the fuck this is, because Sherlock is still in mid-reconstruction.

“While Matthew Wallace was away at a conference, Ms Camberley brought her father-in-law to the Museum after hours, to see some of the pieces in a recent bequest which she knew would interest him. What they didn’t know was that Jeremy was also there, because none of the three was aware of _his_ particular interest.”

This is the moment when Sherlock should be looking smug, triumphant, and John should be hanging on his words, waiting for the big reveal. Instead, Sherlock looks closed-up and miserable, and John just looks very, very tired.

“By the end,” Sherlock says, “Jeremy was jealous of everything Gemma cared about that wasn’t him. He reasoned – well, I say _reasoned_ – that if he removed enough other objects of her affection, she would turn to him. So he concealed himself and a selection of suitable projectiles from Gemma’s bookshelves in the overhead lighting grid, and whilst Gemma was returning the artefacts to their places, Jeremy killed his father.”

“So,” says Lanner, “how did Wallace’s body end up in the abandoned Tube station, and why? And what’s Jeremy’s hobby, then?”

Sherlock turns to her, looking reluctantly impressed. “Now you’re asking the right question, Sergeant Lanner,” he says. He hands her a close-up photograph showing a section of tile with what look like holes dug into the plaster between tiles, and an evidence bag containing a paperback book. Greg twists his neck a bit to read the title _Explore Everything: Place-Hacking the City_. The label on the evidence bag states that it’s from Jeremy Wallace’s bedroom in his father’s house.

“Oh!” Lanner says. “He was an urban explorer!”

Sherlock smiles at her, sort of. “We may make a competent detective of you someday, Sergeant,” he says. Lanner seems to recognize this as Sherlock’s version of a compliment, because she stands straighter.

Then Sherlock turns to Greg, and the smile falls off his face. “I trust you’re planning some sort of protective custody for Matthew Wallace,” he says. “I don’t expect that Jeremy’s campaign to win Gemma’s heart is finished yet.”

“Shit,” says Greg, who absolutely should have thought of that himself before now, sleep deprivation is no excuse, and he sends Lanner and DC Tennant to see to it.

Sherlock spins on his heel. “Come on, John,” he says, without looking. Without a word, John follows him out.

* * *

The next time Greg sees either of them, it’s in the arse-end of Whitechapel in another abandoned Tube station, where Sherlock is leaning against a filthy brick wall trying to pretend he hasn’t just been in a fist-fight and John is sitting on their suspect, his face and body language calm and contained but his eyes glinting dangerously.

Whatever it is the two of them aren’t talking about is thicker in the air than the choking brick-dust.

It takes Greg and his team another two days to sort everything out, because even once they’ve sprung Gemma Camberley and taken Jeremy Wallace into custody, there’s a mountain of paperwork to be done. Greg contemplates sending Lanner and Tennant to wrestle statements and a proper report out of Sherlock and John, because Lanner seems to get on with Sherlock and Greg frankly doesn’t want to deal with their shit right now. In the end, though, he decides he might as well bite the bullet and do it himself.

As soon as he’s opened the front door of 221 Baker Street he hears raised voices from the upstairs flat.

“… what you’re talking about, you _stupid plonker,_ ” John’s shouting. “This is in _no way_ the same as—”

“It’s _exactly_ _analogous_ , John.” Sherlock’s furious bass-baritone cuts across him as Greg climbs the stairs to flat B. “This is what love does to people. It’s only a matter of time before—”

Greg knocks loudly.

There’s a long, _dense_ silence from inside the flat before the door opens.

“Greg,” says John, in a tight voice. He’s neatly dressed in jeans, t-shirt and cabled jumper; there’s a bruise on his left cheek and he looks as though he hasn’t slept in days. “Here for statements?”

Greg nods, and John steps aside to let him in.

He looks around for Sherlock, and after a moment spots him curled on the sofa with his back to the room.

“In a bit of a strop, are we?” he says quietly to John.

John doesn’t answer. He waves Greg to a seat – Greg takes Sherlock’s armchair, both because it’s conveniently across from John’s and because if Sherlock notices, maybe it’ll irritate him out of his sulk – and heads into the kitchen, calling over his shoulder, “Tea?”

“Please,” Greg says.

John brews tea in silence, brings the mugs through to the lounge and lowers himself into his chair with a bone-weary sigh.

“Ta, mate.” Greg sips his tea gratefully – John makes much better tea than the dishwater they serve in the Yard canteen. Then he puts the mug down, gets out his notebook and minidisc recorder, and raises his voice a little to say, “Oi, Sherlock. Statement.”

There’s a deafening silence from the sofa. John’s lips purse and his eyes close briefly. “Sherlock,” he says quietly.

There’s still no reply, but Sherlock uncoils himself and sits up on the sofa, shoulders slumped and elbows on his knees. He looks …

He looks a lot like John did after Sherlock jumped off the roof.

“John,” Greg says, “can I have a word?” He stands up and goes into the kitchen; after a moment John follows him, frowning.

“Listen, mate,” Greg says in a low voice, leaning close in a probably futile effort to conceal this conversation from Sherlock. “You know I don’t make a habit of nosing about in people’s … personal lives, but something’s obviously up between you two, and you’re my friends, so, you know, if there’s anything I can—”

“Look, Greg, not now, all right?” John sags against the worktop as if he’s just too exhausted to keep up the pretence of giving a toss, which makes Greg suddenly determined to get to the bottom of this.

“Later, then,” he says. “Come out for a drink tonight.”

“Greg—”

“Or now.”

John sags further, rubbing the back of his neck. “Fine. Drinks. Good. Can we get on with the statements?”

* * *

John arrives at the Duke of York twenty minutes past the agreed-upon time, which is worryingly atypical, limping, which is maybe understandable given recent crime-related events, and looking unkempt, which is worrying, full stop. He lets Greg buy him a pint of ale and, after a glance at the shadows under his eyes, a sandwich, but ignores the food when it arrives, in favour of repeatedly checking his phone for text messages that don’t arrive.

“Right,” Greg says. “Spill. Are you two …”

John looks up at him with something that might, by stretching the meaning of the term almost to breaking, be called a smile. “Yes, we’re together. No, we’re not shagging, as such. No, it’s not going well at the moment, and no, I don’t want to talk about it.”

Greg pauses for a fortifying sip of ale before he says, “Right. Shouldn’t’ve expected you’d make this easy.”

John stares into his pint glass.

“Not shagging … as such,” Greg repeats. “Because … ?”

“Because Sherlock doesn’t,” John says shortly, “and I’m not an inconsiderate bastard.”

“… right,” says Greg, because that actually sort of makes sense. “Okay. I’ve got to say, I didn’t actually think … I mean, you seemed to date a lot of women, before. And you kept telling people you weren’t gay.”

John stares at the empty space over Greg’s right shoulder. “Funny,” he says distantly, “how I say ‘not gay’ and everyone somehow hears ‘straight.’”

_Huh. Some detective you are, Greg Lestrade._

“Right. Okay. Well, people are idiots, as Sherlock is so fond of pointing out. Including me. Speaking of Sherlock: the two of you are walking around, together, both looking like you’ve lost your best friend, because … ?”

“Look, Greg, I appreciate the—”

“ _Fuck_ no.” Greg sets his pint glass down hard enough to make John raise his head, blinking. “D’you know what I thought, when I saw Sherlock this morning? I thought, _He looks like John looked when we all thought Sherlock was dead_.” John winces and looks down again. “And you don’t look much better, frankly. Far as I can tell, though, nobody actually _is_ dead, and I’d like to keep it that way, yeah? So: talk.”

John’s shoulders sag further. Greg channels his inner DI and patiently waits him out.

“Fine,” John says at last. “Fine. You want to know? Here it is. Last week he completely lost the plot because I made the mistake of telling him I love him.” It’s telling that he says this without any trace of embarrassment. “Which to him, apparently, means I’m about to start demanding all sorts of unappealing sexual activity, God, as if I _could_ , Jesus, is that what you think of me, Sherlock?”

John can normally hold his drink pretty well, and his temper, so it must be drinking on no sleep and an empty stomach that’s making him slump back in his chair and talk to the ceiling. He lowers his head again and takes a long pull on his pint; when he puts the glass down, it’s well more than half empty and he’s looking a bit glassy-eyed.

“Eat,” Greg says.

“What?”

“ _Eat_. Jesus, when did you last have a meal, _Doctor_?”

John blinks. “Good question.” After another long moment, he pulls the plate towards himself and picks up half of the sandwich.

“So,” Greg says, “the problem basically is that Sherlock’s got the emotional IQ of a limpet.”

John snorts. When he’s finished chewing, he says, “It’s partly that, yeah, and partly that all his exes seem to have been colossal tossers who fucked him around.”

“Exes? Plural?” Greg says, surprised. “I didn’t know he had _any_ , let alone a whole set.”

“I only know about the one,” John admits, “but there must have been others, because he told me I’d met ‘one of them’. That one,” he adds grimly, “is certifiably a tosser. Met him twice, wanted to punch him both times.”

Greg’s not sure his eyebrows are capable of going any higher. “Do I want to know?”

“Nnnope.” John starts on the second half of the sandwich; he’s already looking less like death in a woolly jumper, good. “Anyway, we went a few rounds on that topic and I thought we were sorted, but now he’s in the mother of all fucking strops because he’s in love with me and I’m in love with him and he thinks it’s all going to end in some kind of epic disaster.”

“What kind of epic disaster?” Greg says, which doesn’t seem to be what John was expecting, judging by the look on his face.

“Oh, you know,” John says. “Vengeance. Violence. Jealous rage. Homicidally obsessive behaviour. That sort of thing.”

Greg groans. “The Wallace case.” He should have known – all those sneering, vitriolic references to love and stupidity. He thinks about it for a while, and finally says, “I’m not so sure he’s wrong.”

John’s head comes up, his spine straightening, and his eyes focus sharply for the first time since he walked into the pub. “What?”

_Ha. Got your attention now, have I?_

“Tell me you haven’t thought about tracking down those exes of Sherlock’s and teaching them a lesson,” Greg says.

“If wishes were horses, as my Gran used to say. Have I thought about it? Yeah. Am I going to _do_ it? Fuck no, Greg. Come on.”

“Tell me you wouldn’t kill for him,” Greg says. “Or die for him.”

John’s not stupid: he doesn’t bother trying that one on. “Not the same thing,” he says instead. “I’ve had this argument with him already, you realize that. D’you really think I can’t tell the difference between danger to life and limb and, and … _flirting_?”

“Okay, suppose you can,” Greg says, “can he?”

“Jesus, Greg.” John seems to be trying to articulate something else, but ends up just staring at Greg incredulously.

“The thing is, he doesn’t exactly have a good track record of sensible decisions where you’re concerned, does he?”

“He’s Sherlock,” John points out. “He doesn’t do _sensible_. Sensible would be boring.”

“Not exactly Sherlock’s style,” Greg agrees. “If you want melodramatic gestures or cavalier risk-taking or deliberate poking of sleeping dragons, though …”

There’s a long pause. Then John’s head falls forward onto his folded arms. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he groans.

“Look,” Greg says. He can’t remember the last time he had a conversation this sodding uncomfortable, and half of him wants to just forget it, but John … well. “Look, you didn’t know him before he met you, right, but I did. You know what he was doing the first time I saw him? Bleeding out from slash wounds on the floor of a filthy squat in Hackney, off his face on coke, because his dealer didn’t appreciate being told his girlfriend was having it off with the stockboy at the off-licence.”

John makes a pained noise that Greg’s pretty sure was involuntary.

“Wouldn’t shut up, either. Deduced the paramedics the whole way to Casualty. We only found him because the girlfriend told us it was the dealer’s squat, so we went round looking. After the dealer went round to hers, bashed her about until she admitted to the stockboy, and then went round to the off-licence for another spot of GBH, and the licensee rang 999, thank God.

“All I’m saying,” Greg concludes, because John’s starting to look as if his sandwich and his pint might come back the hard way. “Look, you know him better than anyone, including me. But I remember what he was like before he met you, and I remember what he was like when he was using, and I wish to Christ you two would sort yourselves out before I have to go back to hauling his sorry arse out of hellholes in Hackney.”

“Sounds a bit like blackmail,” John points out. But he’s starting to look less ill and more bolshy, which Greg reckons is a good sign.

Greg shakes his head. “You don’t need motivation,” he says. “You need practical tips, and I wish I had some for you, mate, but all I’ve got is – don’t let him spend too much time in his own head when it gets dark in there, yeah?”

“Greg, you don’t seriously think he would …”

“No-o,” Greg says. “Not on purpose. But to turn his brain off for a bit? Or because he’s hiding from something? That, yeah.”

John doesn’t say anything, but his eyes go flinty.

“Not happening on my watch,” he says. “Jesus, Greg, give me a little credit.”

“Mate,” Greg says, “you have no idea how much credit I give you.”

There’s a pause as they both get to the bottoms of their glasses.

John checks his stubbornly silent phone. “God, is that the time?” He taps out a text message – something short – then stares at the phone for almost a full minute.

Then he scrubs one hand through his hair, the heel of the other across his eyes. “Listen, Greg, I’ve got to get back. Thanks for the … thanks. My shout next time, yeah?”

“John—”

“Sorry, I really— Yeah, thanks again.” John has clearly stopped paying any attention to Greg.

“… Right.”

_Don’t fuck this up, guys._

On his way out of the pub, John still looks scruffy and underslept. But his head is up, his back is straight, and his limp has vanished without trace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How did this chapter get so long? o_O
> 
> Apologies for the gratuitous Harry Potter reference. I think my subconscious has been trying to work that into a fic ever since I heard Benedict Cumberbatch doing his Alan Rickman impression...


	4. That's How the Light Gets In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People look at John and see an ordinary, everyday man; a kind and mild-mannered man, a polite and conventional sort of man, one who isn’t much cop at dressing himself but is always clean and tidy. People look at John and see him _all wrong_. This assessment is missing so many crucial elements that it might as well be describing someone else altogether. And one of those elements is John’s iron self-control, and another is the reasons he needs it.

John has gone out to have a drink with Lestrade, and Sherlock is trying very hard not to be jealous.

Jealousy, in this situation, is obviously absurd, as well as childish and shamefully needy: John wouldn’t do … anything, and even if he were going to ( _which he might_ , insists the part of Sherlock’s brain that can never leave well alone and doesn’t think Sherlock should have nice things; _how could_ you _be enough?_ ), he wouldn’t with Lestrade, and Lestrade wouldn’t let him with anyone else ( _but how do you know? he says you’re both his friends, but don’t you think he likes John better? everyone else does_ ), and he’d go somewhere farther from home, wouldn’t he?

_but what if he did? you don’t know he’s where he said he’d be._

But he trusts John. He does. John is reliably, consistently, sometimes infuriatingly honest; he’ll shoot to kill without flinching if lives are at stake, but he’s still deeply uncomfortable with, and concomitantly terrible at, any kind of deception. It isn’t that he doesn’t trust John to be honest about his intentions.

No, it’s not John’s _intentions_ that are the problem.

People look at John and see an ordinary, everyday man; a kind and mild-mannered man, a polite and conventional sort of man, one who isn’t much cop at dressing himself but is always clean and tidy. People look at John and see him _all wrong_.

Which isn’t to say that John isn’t kind, isn’t polite, doesn’t have a fairly wide conventional streak in the pattern of his personality, but that this assessment is missing so many crucial elements that it might as well be describing someone else altogether. And one of those elements is John’s iron self-control, and another is the reasons he needs it.

And, after all, other people before John have had good intentions, and what good did that do, in the end?

* * *

The difficulty is that Sherlock is not sure how he will stand it if – when – things fall apart. And they always do fall apart.

The reasons may be different this time, though.

Sherlock remembers the first time they took a shower together, which John had kept suggesting and Sherlock (based on past experience) had kept making excuses to avoid, until finally one night they’d trailed home at half two, filthy and stinking of things that Sherlock could have identified but didn’t because John had said very firmly that he didn’t want to know, and Sherlock had bagged the first shower and had just been tipping his head back under the nozzle when the bathroom door opened and over the sound of the water he heard John’s voice saying matter-of-factly, “Nnope, sorry, not waiting, too smelly,” and then the sounds of John’s jacket hitting the floor, and then his jeans … and before Sherlock could do anything about the situation – such as leaping out of the shower and fleeing into the night – there was John, calm and compact and businesslike, reaching past him for a bottle of shampoo and saying, “D’you mind washing my hair? Then I’ll do yours.”

And washing John’s hair was … nice, and John washing Sherlock’s hair was _lovely_ , and they thoroughly scrubbed themselves and each other, variously, and rinsed off, and then John reached past Sherlock again and _turned off the taps_ , and then he reached for a towel and handed it to Sherlock and got another for himself, and later he patiently combed the tangles out of Sherlock’s hair, and eventually they fell asleep in a warm tangle on the sofa, which they later regretted, but only because the sofa was, actually, a bit cramped for two people to sleep on for six straight hours, and it wasn’t until he woke up that Sherlock realized that all John’s suggestions of showering together had actually literally meant _showering_.

Sherlock has also tentatively concluded that when John offers to massage his back or rub his feet, that’s as far as things will go, and that if he’s actually requesting a Sherlock-facilitated orgasm, he never says “Come to bed?” but always, with a slightly sheepish little John-smile, “In the mood to help me with an experiment?” Although he wishes John would simply ask for what he wants, as he’s constantly urging Sherlock to do, Sherlock is grateful to him for making this distinction so consistently: the two euphemisms are equally absurd, objectively speaking, but the first one has a socially accepted double meaning that has tripped Sherlock up many times before, and it’s … relaxing … to know that when John says it, it means what it says on the tin and nothing more.

Well, not _nothing_ : often, it also means “We both have fewer nightmares when we sleep in the same space” and/or “I have diagnosed you with sleep deprivation, but I know exactly how much good it will do to tell you so” and/or “I suspect you of needing a cuddle but being too proud/petulant/depressed/self-deluded/annoying to admit it”. But those things are all right, at least when it’s John.

* * *

 

He revisits the argument Lestrade interrupted earlier today, the argument they’d been having, in the interstices of John’s job and Lestrade’s case, for four days, about the parallels between Jeremy Wallace’s behaviour and their own. Parallels that Sherlock immediately saw, and John refused to.

It’s not just that John can be ridiculously protective – which isn’t exactly new; how long had they known each other before John tracked Sherlock halfway across London and put a bullet in a total stranger to protect him from (perceived) harm? – or that Sherlock has a possessive streak – again, hardly a new development. It’s not even the fact that John’s tendency to sacrifice himself to protect Sherlock was sufficiently contagious as to cause Sherlock to fake his death and spend two years extirpating the remains of Moriarty’s criminal network in order to protect John, or the unmistakeable _Property of John Watson, KEEP OFF_ signals that John has begun to emit (probably unconsciously) whenever they’re out somewhere together. It’s that they don’t think of these tendencies as character flaws in each other: quite the reverse.

It’s that Sherlock knows, deep down somewhere that not even John can see, that he’s fully capable of killing anyone who tries to take John from him, and that John simply refuses to understand what that means.

It’s the way Sherlock smiles when he recalls the stakeout in a burlesque club in Soho, the punter who tried to grope him, then John, compact and incandescent in righteous fury, standing over the six-foot, fifteen-stone lout he’d just sent sprawling with one perfectly aimed blow to the jaw, gritting out four perfect words: _Hands. Off. My. Boyfriend_ – and the way that when John is recalling this same incident, his face flushes and he drops his gaze to the floor: he’s ashamed of his swiftness to anger, worries that his behaviour was controlling, thinks he should have handled the incident more diplomatically, wonders whether he should have let Sherlock deal with it himself, believes his reaction was out of proportion to the threat.

It’s the terrifying ease with which Sherlock was able to get inside Jeremy Wallace’s head.

* * *

 John has been gone for _hours_.

* * *

 Somewhere in the flat, Sherlock’s phone chimes.

He unfolds himself from the sofa and swings around the lounge in a wild arc, looking for it. Finally he locates it on the corner of the table, under a heap of printouts from underground.co.uk. It’s right next to John’s laptop.

The text is short:

_sorry, lost track of time. u ok?_

Sherlock stares at it and wonders how to answer.

* * *

He’s still thinking about it when rapid footsteps pound up the stairs and the door of the flat bursts open. He turns, startled, and sees John (of course it’s John; trudging, striding, limping, or running, John’s footsteps are unmistakeable) poised in the doorway, face flushed and eyes wide.

He meets Sherlock’s eyes, looks him quickly up and down, and his expression turns slightly sheepish. “You didn’t answer my text,” he says.

“I didn’t know what to say,” Sherlock admits. He takes a step towards the door, another, another, until he’s in range to fold himself up around John.

* * *

He hasn’t eaten anything, of course, and John assembles a cheese and tomato sandwich for him and makes them yet another cuppa and insists that Sherlock sit down at the table and eat the sandwich and drink the tea. Sherlock doesn’t mind this as much as he pretends, particularly when John finishes drinking his own tea and comes round Sherlock’s side of the table to stand behind him and massage his shoulders.

When the sandwich is finished, John takes the mugs and Sherlock’s plate into the kitchen, and Sherlock hears the crockery clank into the sink.

Then John’s hands are on his shoulders again, and then John presses a kiss to the top of his head. “We need to talk about this, Sherlock,” he says.

Sherlock sighs.

“I know,” says John, near his ear, “but we can’t go on like this.”

So: this is the beginning of the end, then. Of course it couldn’t last.

Sherlock abruptly wishes he’d fended off the sandwich more effectively.

“Hey.” John has crouched down beside his chair and is frowning up at him in worry. “Sherlock. Do I need to get you a bucket? Oh, God, did you do something to that cheese and forget to put a warning label on it?”

Sherlock could almost smile at the effectiveness of his inadvertent diversionary tactic: _To hang onto your doctor for just a little longer, convince him you’re ill._

But no. He shakes his head. “It’s psychosomatic.”

John gives him a puzzled little smile, levers himself to his feet with a hand on Sherlock’s thigh (Sherlock records, in case it’s the last time, the warm shape of that hand, the pressure of each individual finger), makes his way over to the sofa.

“Come and sit,” he says, patting the seat beside him.

Sherlock goes. The March to the Scaffold from _Symphonie Fantastique_ is playing in his head.

He tries to perch at an objective distance; John reaches for him, pulls him (gently; Sherlock doesn’t resist, too busy cataloguing sensations) over and down until he’s lying with his head in John’s lap, looking out at the cluttered lounge with John’s fingers carding through his hair.

John is going to break the news gently, then. He’d like it to end in soft, regretful words rather than shouted recriminations.

Sherlock wants it never to end.

He’s always known it would.

* * *

“I had an interesting chat with Greg,” John begins. “He’s worried about you. Did you really first meet him while high _and_ bleeding out from a stab wound?”

Sherlock shrugs. “I was high most of the time back then,” he says. “The stab wound was somewhat more unusual. I’m surprised he’s waited this long to warn you off.”

John’s fingers still. “He wasn’t _warning me off_ ,” he says. “Actually, I think he was trying to blackmail me into trying harder to work things out with you. I must say, he painted quite a vivid picture.”

There’s something in John’s voice that makes Sherlock want to see his face. He struggles upright.

John won’t look at him – or, at any rate, _doesn’t_ look at him. Instead he’s staring vaguely at the wall over the fireplace.

“He doesn’t want to have to go back to ‘hauling your sorry arse out of shitholes in Hackney’,” he says. “Or maybe he said ‘hellholes’, I don’t remember. It was a good strategy, as they go. Most people would’ve steered clear of guilting me about your welfare and reminded me what a shithole _my_ life was before you happened to me.”

Sherlock frowns in bafflement at the unexpected turn this conversation has just taken. “Maybe that didn’t occur to him?” he suggests. “He didn’t know you before we met, after all.”

“Oh, but he knows,” John says. Grimly. “He knows. He saw what I was like without you, Sherlock, he was _there_.”

Sherlock shrinks away from the unspoken corollary: _He was here, and you weren’t._ In his mind, he hears John’s voice again, raw with fury: _Two years, Sherlock, two_ bloody _years, twenty. four. fucking. months._ And he wants to howl back, _That’s two years of you that I’ll never have, John, don’t you understand?_ – but even he knows that’s unfair: after all, he knew John was alive. That was the _point_ , that John was alive.

“He’s just good at playing people,” John continues. “I mean. Nothing like as good as you are, with the disguises and the voices and the crocodile tears. But Greg knows how to get to you, and he bloody well knows how to get to me. He wasn’t sure I’d fight to save myself, but for you—”

He shuts his mouth abruptly, turns away. Stands up, crosses to the window; stares down into the street. Sherlock is more baffled than ever.

“Whatever happens,” John says, his voice low and tight, “you can’t ever do that again. I don’t care if it’s for my own good, I don’t care if you think it’s the only way to protect me, I don’t care if you’re trying to spare me the nightmares – you _do not ever_ take the choice away from me again, or so help me, Sherlock, this is over, we are _done_. Either we’re partners and we trust each other, or … or I can’t do this. I’m sorry, but at some point you have to decide to trust me back, or I _just can’t do this_.”

It always comes back to that one bad decision, that choice that seemed at the time to be the only one available. Sherlock still isn’t sure what else he could have done; after what happened the first time, though, he knows not to say this to John. He feels at sea, unmoored, adrift in bafflement: if John is setting parameters outside which they are _done_ , then that must mean …

“You think I don’t trust you,” he says instead, impulsively, “but you’re wrong.”

“Am I?” John demands, suddenly rounding on Sherlock with blazing eyes. (Sherlock thinks, irrationally and irrelevantly: _You’re beautiful. You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen._ ) “Then why have we been fighting for three days about whether the world is safe from my potential for homicidal jealousy? Why did I spend half of last week dealing with the fallout of telling you something you _already fucking knew_? Why is our relationship apparently such a shit-show that a detective sergeant at the Met who’s met us all of three times before can spot that we’re having problems?”

Sherlock blinks.

“What makes these things your bridge too far, Sherlock? Look, the ‘I love you’ thing, the words are triggering for you, I get that – we can work around it, it’s fine – but how is it, after I followed you around for eighteen months with an illegal handgun in the back of my trousers half the time and all you ever said was ‘Be sure you get the powder burns off your hands’, now you’re suddenly terrified I’ll snap and shoot someone in the head for, what? Looking at you wrong?”

“It’s not— that’s not—” Sherlock tugs at his hair in frustration. “And, anyway, that was different; you weren’t in love with me, then.”

For a long time, John doesn’t answer. Then he says, very quietly, “Is that what you think?”

* * *

There’s a (subjectively if not objectively) long silence during which Sherlock stares at John and John stares back.

“You … you never said,” Sherlock says finally. His voice seems not to be working properly.

“You were married to your work.”

“You went on all those dates.”

“ _Married to your work_ , Sherlock.” John’s eyes smile at him a little. “I do have needs, you know.”

 _Oh. Here it comes, then._ Sherlock realizes that he’s gripping the sofa cushions hard enough to tear the fabric, and tries to unclench his fingers.

But John comes back to the sofa, sits down beside him, says, “And only some of them are filled by solving crimes and punching people,” and Sherlock is confused again.

“I’m trying to work out why this matters so much to you,” John says. His left hand comes up, ghosts across Sherlock’s brow and up into his fringe, cradles his skull briefly, then falls again. “To be honest, I … I sort of thought you liked it when I … um. Pulled rank.”

“It matters,” Sherlock says, _pianissimo_ , “because it would _break you_. I know you, John; I’ve observed you. You’ve never regretted harm inflicted in the course of defending me from what you perceived as a physical threat, but you devoted the best part of a day to pointless self-flagellation after knocking down that punter at the burlesque club. All that regret, completely unnecessary – he didn’t hurt me, and you didn’t permanently damage him.”

And again John’s cheeks redden in embarrassment and he looks away.

_The Prosecution rests._

“You see?” Sherlock says. “It would destroy you, to know you’d succumbed to that urge, that you had deliberately harmed someone who, by your own standards, didn’t deserve it. You would hate yourself, John, and you would hate me for motivating you to violate your internalized moral code, and if I did something similar you would hate me for that, too. And—” For some reason, Sherlock is having difficulty speaking around the sudden lump in his throat. He swallows. “And both of those outcomes are unacceptable.”

John’s head snaps up; his eyes narrow. “And you’re proposing what instead?” he demands.

The lump in Sherlock’s throat has grown huge, obstructive (smokers are at increased risk of throat cancer; is it possible for throat cancer to develop and metastasize in a matter of minutes? No, almost certainly not), and his eyes are stinging, as though—

“Sherlock? Sherlock!” And again, just like that, John has gone from furious to tender, and Sherlock can’t remember the last time he cried real tears but that is unquestionably what is happening now, John is folding Sherlock into his arms and pulling Sherlock’s head down onto his shoulder and real, genuine, _hateful_ tears (and worse things) are soaking into John’s shirt and it’s unbearable and Sherlock can’t _breathe_ for the tearing sobs that seem to want to choke him and pry his ribcage apart, and John—

“Ssshhh,” John murmurs into his ear. John’s arms are around him, John’s hands are splayed on his shoulder-blade, his ribs. “Sshh, love, I’ve got you. It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

And then, a little later: “I realize breathing is boring, love, but it’s also a bit necessary to brain oxygenation.”

Minutes pass (possibly hours; possibly days) before Sherlock succeeds in drawing a breath that’s only half a sob.

“That’s it,” John says encouragingly, and turns his head slightly to press a soft, silent kiss to Sherlock’s ear. Sherlock is consumed with shame; he tenses, trying to break away, but John holds him fast. “You’re allowed, you know,” he says. His voice is quiet. “If the possibility of losing me upsets you, there’s no shame in that. And the feeling is mutual, by the way.”

Sherlock subsides. His hands, he discovers, are fisted in the fabric of John’s shirt; he unclenches them, smoothes his palms over the resulting creases, as if that could fix … anything.

“I,” he says, into John’s shirt-collar. “I don’t know … what to ... where to go. From here.”

“Hmm,” says John, in a considering sort of voice. “Well, I think washing your face and blowing your nose would be a good start.”

He gives Sherlock’s shoulder a little pat. Sherlock obediently unfolds himself and, not looking at John, slopes off to the bathroom.

* * *

When he comes back, feeling slightly less defenceless after decanting what appeared to be several centilitres of mucus from his nose, rinsing the salt deposits off his skin, and changing his clothes, John is leaning against the kitchen worktop, staring down at his feet. There’s a minute hole in the toe of his left sock.

“You said ‘the feeling is mutual’,” Sherlock says. “Does that mean you aren’t leaving?”

John goggles at him. “Of course I’m not _leaving_ , Sherlock,” he says, as if this were the most ridiculous thing Sherlock has ever said to him. “Why would you think that?” Then his eyes narrow in suspicion: “Sherlock, have you been reading _Marie Claire_ again?”

“ _No_.” Sherlock rolls his eyes. Rolling his eyes at John – having John there to roll his eyes at – suddenly seems so familiar, so beloved, so _essential_ , that his gut clenches at the thought of losing it. “It’s— the situation is one I’m familiar with,” he says stiffly. “Being left.”

John’s expression is … is indescribable. He blinks; takes a deep breath and lets it out. He brings both his hands up to curl over Sherlock’s shoulders. “Sherlock,” he says, “I—” He stops, and Sherlock knows what he was going to say, holds himself still in spite of it. “You are life and breath to me,” John begins again, holding Sherlock’s gaze. His eyes are blue like velvet, blue like Mahler, blue like _Starry Night_. “You are everything I never realized I wanted. You are brilliant and amazing and extraordinary and the _most_ _colossal idiot_ , and you are _mine_ , Sherlock Holmes, and I am _not leaving_.”

“You’re not leaving,” Sherlock repeats. He feels dazed and floaty, as though John’s grip on his shoulders is the only thing anchoring him to the floor.

Then John rocks up onto his toes and kisses him, very gently.

“Mine,” Sherlock says, and pulls him into a fierce, tight hug.

* * *

“So you know,” John says, when Sherlock eventually releases him, “I only have that one deal-breaker.”

“We have to be partners,” Sherlock says obediently, “and trust each other.”

“Trust each other completely.”

“Yes, John.”

“Fortunately, I think we can tackle both our deal-breakers at the same time,” John says. “I think what we need is a commitment device.”

“A … _commitment device_?” This sounds vaguely kinky in a way Sherlock isn’t sure he’s comfortable with.

“You know,” John says. “Like AA for alcoholics, or Weight Watchers for people trying to lose weight, or like keeping a to-do list on the fridge and ticking things off when you’ve done them.”

Sherlock raises one eyebrow. “You think we should make a to-do list,” he says, “and keep it on the fridge.”

“Well, more of a want / don’t want list,” says John. “I was thinking, while you were, er, getting yourself sorted, and I really think this could work. Come on.”

He takes Sherlock’s hand and tugs him back out into the lounge. Sherlock sits on the sofa; John rummages around the laptop table for a bit and comes up with two biros and a spiral-bound notebook, which he sets on the coffee table in front of Sherlock before sitting down on the sofa too.

“Okay,” he says. “Here’s what we’re going to do.” He tears two pages out of the notebook and hands them to Sherlock, then tears out two more for himself. “On one of those sheets, make a list of things you want, and on the other sheet, things you don’t want. And I’ll do the same, and then we’ll exchange them.”

Sherlock frowns at him. “This is silly,” he objects.

“I don’t care,” John says. “We’re trying it anyway.”

Sherlock considers accusing him of getting the idea from _Marie Claire_ , but John is already writing, and the tip of his tongue is poking out a little bit, and Sherlock just wants to look at his profile for a minute, so he doesn’t.

Eventually he looks down at the notebook paper, picks up the biro, and writes,

_I want_

Then he stalls. Glances over at John’s list for inspiration, and sees that it’s already quite long. John spots him looking and says, “Eyes on your own paper, Sherlock.”

Sherlock glares at him. This is ridiculous. But …

 _Cups of tea made by John_ , he writes, _because they taste better_

_Hugs_

_Back massages and foot rubs_

He thinks about John, about his old flat in Montague Street, about the (alas, undeletable) years when he was travelling the world without John.

 _To be reminded to eat_ , he writes, _even though I pretend it annoys me_

_Crimes to solve ( not boring ones)_

_John in my bed, even if I’m not there_

_Company on stakeouts_

_To be allowed to touch_

_Experiments in the kitchen_

_Takeaway and crap telly_ , he writes, and hesitates over the next thing, because while he adores the thing itself the word makes him cringe a bit, but then writes it anyway: _and cuddling on the sofa_

_John’s expression when I solve a case and he thinks I’m amazing_

_To make John laugh and tell me I’m ridiculous_

_Experiments in the bedroom_

_Showers and having my hair washed_

He glances again to his left, where John is now working on a list headed _Things I don’t want_. John’s handwriting is execrable – unsurprising, given that he’s both left-handed and a doctor – but Sherlock manages to make out, at the top of the list,

_1\. To be without Sherlock ever again_

He writes _I don’t want_ at the top of his other sheet of notebook paper and begins his own list with

_To be without John ever again_

* * *

 

“Are you done, or still thinking?” John asks him, some time later.

“Done,” Sherlock says. John puts out his hand for Sherlock’s lists, and hands Sherlock his own.

“Do we have to … read them out, or something?”

John grins. “We can if you want to,” he says, “but I don’t think it’s a requirement.”

He bends his head to read Sherlock’s list, and Sherlock copies him.

 _Things I don’t want_ , he reads.

_1\. To be without Sherlock ever again._

_2\. To be lied to, ~~even~~ especially for my own protection. ~~ ~~~~~~_

_3\. Pity sex, guilt sex, or apology sex of any kind whatsoever._

There’s an emphatic asterisk at the end of this entry; Sherlock drops his gaze to the bottom of the page and reads,

_*Apology hugs, cups of tea, or flat-tidying, on the other hand, are strongly encouraged._

He snorts. John raises his eyes. “Found the footnote?” he inquires, and grins unrepentantly.

_4\. To be controlling, manipulative or dictatorial._

_5\. To be controlled, manipulated or dictated-to._

_6\. To meet any more of Sherlock’s exes, because seriously I don’t need another ASBO._

* * *

 

Sherlock has moved on to John’s _Things I want_ list, which begins,

_1\. Hugs_

_2\. Cuddling on the sofa_

_3\. To go to sleep next to Sherlock every night and wake up next to Sherlock every morning (I know, not happening, but a man can dream_ _J_ _)_

_4\. Back massages_

_5\. Takeaway and crap telly and cuddles_

_6\. Those really terrifyingly good hand-jobs of Sherlock’s once in a while_

_7\. ALL HOUSEHOLD EXPERIMENTS LABELLED AS SUCH PLEASE. Especially the ones in the fridge._

_8\. Kisses_

_9\. Loads and loads of Sherlock’s smiles, the real ones_

_10\. Sherlock to eat at least once a day (seriously, I shouldn’t have to tell you this, Sherlock)_

_11\. To be able to tell people about my amazing (?) boyfriend (?) partner ( NB: We should probably talk about terminology at some point)_

_12\. Cuddling instead of, say, shooting the walls_

Sherlock looks up, frowning. “You’ve got cuddling on here _three times_ ,” he says.

“Well spotted,” John says.

“You’ve got hugs and back massages,” Sherlock says.

“I have,” John agrees. “Funny thing.”

“I really thought there would be more … _sex acts_ on this list.”

John’s forehead crinkles up. “Why?”

“Well …” Sherlock feels adrift again, but this time he’s floundering, not floating. “You, er. You like … sex. Orgasms. Things.”

“Ye-es,” John says. “I do like those things quite a lot. I also very much like cuddling on the sofa and spooning in bed and holding hands in the backs of taxis and kisses while the tea is brewing, all of which, I have it on good authority, you also enjoy. Did you think any specific sex act could possibly be more important to me than _you_?”

Sherlock squirms a bit under his level gaze. “Well,” he says. “That particular cost–benefit equation has gone against me a few times before, yes.”

“Previous. Findings. Do. Not. Generalize.” John prods him in the ribs, gently, to emphasize each word. “What about the results of _our_ experiments? Come on, I know you’ve got a spreadsheet.”

Sherlock starts to deny this, then remembers about not lying to John. “You make approximately one and a half times as much noise during climax when we maintain physical contact as you do when I’m only observing,” he admits, “and afterwards your heart rate takes an extra three minutes, on average, to return to normal.”

John blushes, which makes him look exceptionally cuddly. After a moment’s consideration, Sherlock leans over and kisses his ear. “For a medical professional,” he says, “you’re very easily flustered.”

“Moving on,” John says firmly, “what have you observed about yourself during these, er, lab sessions?”

Sherlock considers this question, which, to be honest, is not one he has previously given much attention. Calls to mind John’s flushed face and dilated pupils, his arching back and gasps and wordless cries (not always wordless). It’s interesting to watch from across the room, but more interesting from close up, better to feel John’s heartbeat (speeding and then slowing) transmitted from ribcage to ribcage, from John’s back into Sherlock’s chest, better to hold an arm around him as his back arches, to kiss John’s sweat-sheened temple as his head falls back against Sherlock’s shoulder. To hold the warm loose-limbed weight of him afterwards, to count exhales as his respiration rate slows.

Occasionally, to spread his hand over John’s and … follow, for a bit.

“That I also prefer the contact condition to the non-contact condition,” he concedes.

“And what do you conclude from those observations?”

“I don’t _know_ ,” Sherlock says, frowning.

“Okay, then,” John says. “I’ll tell you. The correct conclusion, based on your observations of me and your observations of yourself, is that _I enjoy myself more when you’re enjoying yourself_. Remember that the next time you start wondering when I’m going to leave you or, or go out looking for sex if you don’t put out.”

“I don’t— that’s not—”

“Sherlock.” John lays one hand on each side of Sherlock’s face and leans their foreheads together. “I’ve got what I want in the sex department. Okay? I have everything I want. Because I’ve got _you_.”

Sherlock ducks his head into John’s shoulder until he’s sure there aren’t going to be more awful, embarrassing tears.

* * *

“Now,” John says, looking at the lists spread out on the coffee table. He yawns; it’s one-seventeen in the morning, and although he took a nap between Lestrade’s invasion ( _visit_ , Sherlock reminds himself) and his trip to the pub, he’s obviously still in need of more sleep.

“You’re tired,” Sherlock says. “You could— we could go to bed. Do the next bit tomorrow.”

He’s slightly apprehensive about what the next bit might turn out to be.

John, apparently finished yawning, gives him a considering look. “Nnnope,” he says. “New day tomorrow. New start. We’ll need a roadmap.”

Sherlock quirks an eyebrow at him; John just smiles.

Then he picks up a biro, opens his notebook, prints his own name at the top, JOHN, and then writes

_ I will _

on one side of the page and

_ I will not _

on the other side.

“What’s this?” Sherlock asks, interested despite his misgivings.

“Commitment device,” John says. “Promises I’m making you, in writing, which I’m going to post where we can both see them. And then you’re going to do the same thing.”

“I am?”

“Yes,” says John, very firmly.

* * *

 

Forty minutes of debate later, John’s list reads:

_ I will _

_make you tea in reasonable quantities._

_cuddle on request, unless engaged in something that can’t be interrupted. (N.B.: this includes work!)_

_accompany you on cases as often as I can._

_encourage you to eat at reasonable intervals._

_be your best friend to the best of my ability._

_patch you up when you’ve been injured on a case, and tell you if you need to go to hospital._

_ I will not _

_ever demand that you participate in sexual activities that you find distasteful, distressing or otherwise unpleasant._

_use the words “I love you,” unless you have used them first._

_nag you about food during cases (much)._

_ever kill anyone, unless lives are at stake._

and Sherlock’s reads:

_ I will _

_respect your medical expertise and listen to you if you tell me I need to go to hospital._

_do my best not to lose the plot if you inadvertently use the words beginning with I.L.Y._

_label all experiments as experiments, using the yellow warning labels provided._

_be your best friend to the best of my ability._

_drink tea when you make it for me._

_cuddle on request, unless engaged in something that can’t be interrupted. (N.B.: this includes experiments!)_

_play the violin quietly when you are having trouble sleeping._

_ I will not _

_lie to you, deceive you, or make decisions for you without your knowledge and consent._

_suggest or initiate sexual activities for any reason other than wanting to participate in them with you._

_abandon you at crime scenes._

_kill people who chat you up, even if, secretly, I want to hurt them a bit._

 

“You realize what this looks like,” John remarks, as he’s affixing the lists to the freezer door with blu-tack.

“Lists,” Sherlock says. He rests his chin on the top of John’s head and squeezes his good shoulder. “Lists that mean we’re partners.”

“That’s … yeah, actually, close enough,” John says agreeably. He yawns yet again, finishes his blu-tacking, and turns to put his arms around Sherlock.

“Come to bed?” he says softly.

“Yes,” says Sherlock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, is there a name for a fic in which each chapter is arithmetically (possibly even geometrically) longer than the one before it? Fibonacci fic? o_O

**Author's Note:**

> Titles from Leonard Cohen's brilliant ["Anthem"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e39UmEnqY8).


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